It says "it may" - it's also Wikipedia, written by random people on the internet.

But please read my link on implied licences.

You might find this link on of more interest:

"Any infringement action must be brought within three years after the infringement occurs. {FN82: 17 U.S.C. §507(b)} But in many instances, the infringement is of a continuing nature, such as distributing copies or performing the work. For example, consider the making of a large number of infringing copies and distributing them until all the copies have been sold. If it is over three years since the copies were made, the copyright owner can’t sue for infringement of the reproduction right but can sue for infringement of the distribution right if any copies were sold within the previous three years.

However, if the copyright owner acts in such a way as to lead people to believe that he or she will not bring an infringement suit, such as ignoring open infringement for a long time, with no other reason preventing him from bringing suit, a legal principle called “laches” may prevent a later suit. The determination is very fact-intensive, based on the actions (or lack of action) of the copyright owner, the amount of delay, and the prejudice worked against the infringer by the delay."

Thus if Medievia were to shut down today, three years from now they would indeed be untouchable.

Well as I pointed out, the licence would be their defence against claims of copyright infringement. If the licence was somehow not applicable to them, they'd have no defence.

Donathin wrote:
How many times does this need repeating? Aardwolf is still a DIKU. Aardwolf has satisfied one of the five members of the DIKU team that the re-write that is in progress meets clean room standards. When that re-write is complete and they start running it, then they will not be a DIKU. The current Aardwolf is a DIKU. It says so right on the login screen. Further, as Derek (Aardwolf's owner) stated, Hans disagrees with their selling of items in-game while still a DIKU, but Derek has agreed to disagree with him.

I would never assume you represent anyone but yourself, don't worry.

He is regularly demonized by some people in the community for openly defying what those people believe the DIKU license means and to whom it applies. He's supported by thousands of people in the community who play his game, and I suspect most people in the community just want to play their MUD.

--matt

I'm honestly not interested in a legal arugment with you. It's like having an argument about coding between two non-coders. In any case, there's no need to argue about it really. I've already obtained an opinion from an IPR attorney (an actual expert in other words) on this specific situation, and in any case, the legal avenue is clear: The DIKU creators are free to sue if they believe it's worth it and there is a case.

Law is decided in a court, not by third parties arguing on an internet forum.

--matt

Different people have a different amount of tolerance. Some people only care about stripping out the credits, and as a result don't care about Aardwolf. Others will overlook small amounts of money as long as it is only used to support the mud, and as a result tend to overlook Aardwolf.

Personally I consider any licence violation bad, but my main reason for responding is to bring those violations to light. Medievia constantly deny any wrongdoing, and as such I feel compelled to draw attention to what they're doing (the website I put together in 2000 was purely focused on revealing the facts). Aardwolf, on the other hand, admit their wrongdoing outright - there's not really anything I can add to that.

On the other hand, take a look at other muds over the years which have violated licences and then denied wrongdoing, and you'll see my responses are much like those I've made towards Medievia.

Unbelievable...after all these years, you finally admit you're based on Diku.

Yes, but you'd have to stop violating the licence first - that means no more changes, no more compilations, no more backups...and no more access to the public.  Then wait a few years, and you should be okay.

So are you saying that if Medievia just said, "Yep, we're breaking your interpretation of the DIKU license. Tough." you'd stop agitating against them more or less completely?

Hang on, while I wrote this, you just said they admitted they're a DIKU. Can we expect you to stop now?

--matt

It's too bad I already have a signature.

Right now, we have two MUDs. One is working with the DIKUMUD creators to establish a "clean" implementation, as well as crediting them for their role in making their game possible.

The other is taking a big dump on the DIKU lawn, going so far as to insult the DIKU team's contribution, even though it provided the foundation for their present household income, and they still use a derivative of it.

If you can't understand why people would be more annoyed with one than the other, I don't know what else to say. In any event, the behavior of other games doesn't justify the behavior of Medievia. "He did it too!" doesn't make you less guilty of plagiarism or copyright infringement.

What is your objection to restoring the credits?

My interpration? Even you agreed that by omitting the credits they're in violation of the Diku licence.

Are you now withdrawing that opinion? I'd be interested to hear how you believe the wording of the licence allows you to remove the credits.

No, what I said is that the license appears to require the credits (though again, I am not a lawyer) but that I don't believe the license necessarily applies to them.

--matt

If Medievia admitted that it is DIKU-derived then it would probably earn back a little bit of respect and trust. Even still, to take someone else's work and then not credit them at all is hard to validate.

As far as the charging in-game for perks goes - I do not agree with it on a fair-gameplay level. And I do not agree with Aardwolf breaking the DIKU License by charging for in-game items(although it is used to keep the MUD running, and not as a profession). I do respect their open co-operation and their crediting of their origins.

In the end, as far as this thread goes, Medievia remains the most accessable and complete example of DIKU license-breaking, which is why they are used as an example and not Aardwolf.

Based on what?

Do you disagree that ?

And if you believe the Diku licence doesn't apply to them, what else do you feel would give Medievia the to reproduce, prepare derivative works, distribute, perform or display the work publically? These are exclusive rights granted under copyright law, they have to come from somewhere.

If they restored all the credits as well, perhaps. There would still be negative remarks about the selling of items, but far less than they get now.

Let's not get too bogged down in the source wars either please. I am merely a lay person where the law is concerned, and we are going through all this together here to learn what it is that is true, what makes people feel one way or the other about Diku issues, and so forth.

Whatever else may be true or untrue about Wikipedia, the organization is not just a bunch of yahoos posting whatever they like about every topic they can get their hands on.

From a practical point of view though, how could you tell if they did or did not redo everything from scratch once the code has changed so much that it is no longer recogniseable?

It seems that we could keep debating about derivative works forever, but, if not even a code audit would suffice for Medievia team to come out clean (ie. people accepting that they are not a Diku derivative any longer), then I do see little value on even worrying about these lengthy discussions.

I guess it is important to mention also that you can change all the background structures and functions yet have the game look the same as it has always looked like, so, for a player there would be no difference between the "derivative" and the "from-scratch" versions.

I'm just pointing out that anyone on this thread could very easily change or add to the wikipedia entry.

Did you not read ? It states that in the first and last paragraph. That link has said that for quite some time.

You'd have to ask Vryce that. I don't really know for sure. I would assume though that it's because Vryce does not feel he needs to credit them. *shrug* As I wrote in my first post, he has told me that he tried to communicate with the diku authors way back in the beginning to help them with fixes and he was told they weren't interested. Maybe it's just bitter feelings from the start but honestly, Medievia is the work of Vryce and all the people who have worked on it since it's inception. Medievia is the vision and work of Michael Krause and all the people that have volunteered their time and talents to help him with it. Call me disrespectful or whatever, but no one in Denmark created Medievia. The engine it was originally built on has nothing to do with what it is today.

You couldn't - however by inviting a member of the Diku team to track the progress, they pretty neatly sidestep the issue.

Well I think the issue is more that they wouldn't allow a code audit - combined with the fact that they actually admit they've just modified the Diku code (rather than started over).

You can, yes.